Toho

Toho Co., Ltd. was born in 1932 when industrialist Ichizō Kobayashi, founder of the Hankyu Railway, launched the Tokyo-Takarazuka Theatre Company. The name Toho is a shortened form of Tokyo Takarazuka, with kanji meaning roughly Tokyo treasures. In parallel, the Photo Chemical Laboratory (PCL) started in 1932 as a sound-film technology company, and after several mergers, TOHO emerged in 1943, with its production facilities named TOHO STUDIOS. Today, the company is a core member of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group, integrating film production, distribution, exhibition, and live theater.

In 1954, Toho released Godzilla, a film that turned a radioactive dinosaur into a worldwide icon. That monster alone has appeared in 36 Toho films, joined by Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla, the Big Five that have recurred across the Shōwa, Heisei, Millennium, Reiwa, and American Monsterverse eras. Beyond kaiju, Toho has distributed works by Akira Kurosawa, Studio Ghibli, Shin-Ei Animation, TMS Entertainment, CoMix Wave Films, and OLM. The Doraemon film series, which Toho has distributed since 1980, is Japan's top-grossing film franchise, animated or otherwise. Many of the country's highest-grossing films come from Toho, and through subsidiaries, it imports more foreign films than any other Japanese distributor.

Toho also produces stage plays and operates major theaters, including the Imperial Theatre (currently under reconstruction) and Theatre Creation. It runs Toho Cinemas, a leading multiplex chain, and maintains overseas offices in Los Angeles and New York. Through Toho-Towa and Towa Pictures, it distributes films from Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. in Japan. As one of Japan's Big Four film studios and the only one included in the Nikkei 225, Toho holds a dominant position in the industry. [edit]